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Last week, my wife and I saw The Mule, the latest movie starring and directed by Clint Eastwood. It kind of plodded along, but we cannot expect too much action from Clint these days. At some point in the movie, I noticed an actor that I recognized. However, I could not figure out why. That is when I went to the trusty Internet Movie Database to do some research.

The actor was Clifton Collins, Jr., and I knew him from Westworld, the HBO series based on the 1970s movie. When I started reading about him, I ran into an interesting fact. Clifton Collins, Jr. is the grandson of Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, the character actor who played in several John Wayne movies. He is great as Carlos in Rio Bravo.

Gonzalez Gonzalez was “discovered” by Groucho Marx on You Bet Your Life. I put quotations around discovered because he had been a performer with his family since childhood.

To honor Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, here is some wisdom that can be found from his movies.

A few weeks ago, I received an email from my brother that contained an interesting link – the Wikipedia page for Bruce Cabot. For those who do not know, Cabot was an actor who became a favorite costar of John Wayne. Being raised on John Wayne westerns, we know Cabot’s work well. However, this link had information that we did not know.

Cabot’s father was Major Etienne de Pelissier Bujac, Sr. Of course, that means Bruce Cabot was Etienne de Pelissier Bujac, Jr. before taking on a three syllable stage name. Wait, I got off track.

Cabot’s father was a prominent attorney in Carlsbad, New Mexico. You may be wondering where he received his law degree. That would be from Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee – the place from where my brother and I have degrees and the place where I teach.

The western movie nerd that I am thinks that connection to Bruce Cabot and John Wayne is awesome. To celebrate, here are some words of wisdom from a few of Cabot’s movies.

From King Kong

The public must have a pretty face.

From Angel and the Badman

Funny thing about pancakes: I lose my appetite for ’em after the first couple a dozen.

The Lord moves in mysterious manner at times, using strange methods and odd instruments.

Each human being has an integrity that can be hurt only by the act of that same human being and not by the act of another human being.

The practice of medicine is one of the most infuriating professions known to man. It takes thirty years of experience to teach you that – in the final analysis – there’s nothing to do but stand and watch.

From The Comancheros

Words are what men live by.

Never go to bed without makin’ a profit.

Do not be too conceited.

From Hatari!

The first sign of spring in the bush and the young bucks start butting heads.

From McClintock!

All the gold in the United States Treasury and all the harp music in heaven can’t equal what happens between a man and a woman with all that growin’ together.

There’s no such thing as free land.

You have to be a man first before you’re a gentleman.

From In Harm’s Way

All battles are fought by scared men who’d rather be someplace else.

On the most exalted throne in the world, we are seated on nothing but our own arse.

Fish, or cut bait.

Indecision is a virus.

From The War Wagon

The world needs more simple understanding to bring people together.

From The Green Berets

That’s newspapers for you. You could fill volumes with what you don’t read in them.

From Chisum

No matter where people go, sooner or later there’s the law. And sooner or later they find God’s already been there.

From Big Jake

You shouldn’t butt into things that aren’t your business.

You know what the problem with money is? Somebody’s always trying to take it from you.

The other night, I caught a few minutes of the original 3:10 to Yuma. I have seen it before, and it is better than its remake from a few years ago. Of course, originals are usually better than remakes. The first one has better actors in several roles, but I definitely think that Richard Jaeckel is better than Ben Foster in the role of Charlie Prince.

Jaeckel shows up in a lot of movies, and I figured this would be a good time to look for words of wisdom in those movies. As in all Movie Wisdom posts, I must have seen all of the movies, but the words can be spoken by any actor in the movie.

From Sands of Iwo Jima

You gotta learn right and you gotta learn fast.

Don’t get blind, staggerin’ stinkin’ falling down drunk.

From 3:10 to Yuma

It seems terrible that something bad can happen and all anybody can do is stand by and watch.

Funny, some men you see every day for ten years and you never notice; some men you see once and they’re with you for the rest of your life.

Squeezin’ that watch ain’t gonna stop time.

Borrowing isn’t begging.

From 4 for Texas

A secret whispered in a coffee house is as confidential as a headline in a newspaper.

From Chisum

No matter where people go, sooner or later there’s the law.

From Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

Comes an age in a man’s life when he don’t wanna spend time figuring what comes next.

It is probably too soon for another edition of Movie Wisdom, but I have been inspired by one of my favorite movies, which is on television at this very moment. El Dorado stars John Wayne, James Caan, Robert Mitchum and a ton of character actors. One of those actors is Robert Mitchum’s brother, John.

John Mitchum was never a leading man like his brother, but he was in a bunch of good movies. In honor of finding this gem deep in the heart of my satellite dish, this is the Movie Wisdom that can be found in the movies of John Mitchum.

From Stalag 17

Just because they are dumb doesn’t mean that they’re stupid.

From My Fair Lady

The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated.

The French don’t care what they do actually, as long as they pronounce it properly.

There even are places where English completely disappears; in America they haven’t used it for years.

Recently, I returned from our annual field trip to New Mexico, and, as always, it brought some great experiences and memories. We operate on a strict schedule, but something unexpected always happens. One year, we met the tribal judge of the Nambe Pueblo at IHOP, and she invited us to visit her courtroom. Another year, we stumbled into a Mother’s Day celebration at the San Ildephonso Pueblo and were invited to stick around.

A couple of trips ago, I bought a statue of Billy the Kid at the Shidoni Gallery. It turned out to be the last one, which meant the artist had to approve the sale. The next year, we were exploring Ghost Ranch and started talking some people. As it turns out, one of them was the artist who made my sculpture, and he was very interested to meet the person who had bought the last one.

This year, we arrived in Santa Fe on Friday and headed to the plaza to take advantage of free admission to the museums. The New Mexico History Museum is one of the best I have seen, and we wanted the students to go through it before we went on our daily tours. Usually, they walk around, and I hang around to answer questions. However, I wanted to do some of my own exploring. Upstairs, they had a special exhibit on cowboys, both real and imagined.

In the lobby, I saw an elderly couple, and the man was dressed to the hilt as a cowboy. I figured they were there for the exhibit and really thought that when I heard the woman say she was wondering if they would see anyone they knew.

A student and I went into the exhibit, and it was great. There were artifacts and photographs that offered a sense of what true cowboys did. As the exhibit continued, it ventured into the realm of the cowboy myth with tales of wild west shows, rodeos, dime novels and movies.

I looked at all of these things, but I also watched the elderly couple being escorted through the exhibit by a museum employee. That’s when I began to think that maybe this man was depicted in the exhibit or had donated some of the artifacts.

Toward the end of the display, there were movie posters and clips from some classic westerns. My eye was immediately drawn to Chisum, and I told the student that she had to watch that clip. Before she could pick up the headphones to listen, the museum employee spoke to us.

“I would like to introduce you to someone.”

He motioned to the elderly man in the cowboy hat.

“This is Max Evans. He wrote that.”

As the man said this, he pointed to the movie poster of The Hi-Lo Country. We were standing in the presence of a great western writer. Honestly, Mr. Evans didn’t seem interested in talking to us, as he began to mosey away. That’s alright because I was still happy to meet him.

A few minutes later, we found out that they were screening The Hi-Lo Country that night, and he was going to answer questions about his work. We went to the theater, and I took a very dark picture.

Max Evans is in the white hat.

I wish we could have stayed around for the screening, but, as I said, we operate on a strict schedule. I have never seen The Hi-Lo Country, but I will now.

Yesterday, some friends invited me to spend the night on a houseboat. Figuring that there would be a lot of late night commotion on the boat, I took my iPod in case I needed some solitude for sleep. As it turned out, everyone conked out fast from a day filled with activity, but I plugged the iPod into my ears anyway. The Guns n’ Roses version of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” came on and the following took place in my mind.

I immediately thought of the original Bob Dylan version as it played over the death scene of Slim Pickens in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, one of my favorite westerns.

From there, I thought about one of the times I saw Bob Dylan in concert. He and Willie Nelson had a tour where they played in minor league baseball stadiums. As I watched them from the infield, I kept wondering what the backstage party must have been like.

Then, I started thinking about a local legend involving Willie Nelson. Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge is a famous honky-tonk in Nashville where singers and players would congregate between sets of the Grand Ole Opry.

It seems that one night Willie was in Tootsie’s drowning his sorrows at the bar. He wasn’t making it in Nashville, and, in a moment of depression, he walked outside and sprawled in the middle of Broadway. His intent was to be run over by a car. Fortunately, they got him out of the street; he went to Texas; grew out his hair; and became a legend.

When this entered my mind, I started thinking about the time I saw Willie with Ray Price and Merle Haggard. Price’s biggest hit was “For the Good Times“, which happened to be written by Kris Kristofferson, the one who played Billy the Kid in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

The other person on the bill, Merle Haggard, is one of my all-time favorites. He performed a song in a movie I recently watched, and I started thinking about a song that appeared in a John Wayne movie called Chisum, an inaccurate retelling of the story of Billy the Kid.

As you can see, Billy the Kid and a bunch of connections to his pop cultural self kept entering my mind. That’s when I started thinking about the last time I visited his grave.At least, that’s his headstone. Some people claim that Billy the Kid got away and lived to be an old man. That’s doubtful. Without a doubt, a flood swept through the cemetery and washed away all of the markers. It may have even carried off a few bodies. So, Billy is probably not anywhere near this piece of rock. However, I started thinking, “What if they had buried him above ground like they do in New Orleans?”

Obviously, this started me down another tread of thought. Earlier this year, we took some students on a field trip to the French Quarter (I know. Cool teacher.), and we toured the City of the Dead, one of their above ground cemeteries. One of the most interesting graves was that of Marie Laveau, voodoo queen of New Orleans.

The grave has offerings left behind by people searching for a blessing. I thought about that, but I also thought about a song by Redbone called “The Witch Queen of New Orleans“.

New Orleans. It’s a cool city, and a lot of movies have been made there. They started running through my mind, but one that I saw the other day stuck out. It was Live and Let Die, the James Bond film that has the scene with an agent watching a funeral parade in the French Quarter. When he asks whose funeral it, he is stabbed and placed in the coffin. That’s when the parade really cranks up. Then, the theme song by Paul McCartney and Wings entered my brain.

That’s when it hit me. Holy crap. “Live and Let Die” was another movie song that was covered by Guns n’ Roses.